


Shirts

by Lue4028



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock (TV) RPF, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (2009) RPF, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Affection, Ambiguous Relationships, Bromance, Bromance to Romance, Brotherly Affection, Clothing Kink, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Epic Bromance, Epic Friendship, Epic Love, Falling In Love, Friendship/Love, Gen, Happy Ending, Johnlock Fluff, Lab Bromance, M/M, Other, Pining Sherlock, Sentimental Sherlock, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sub Sherlock Holmes, Sweet Sherlock, Teen Romance, Teenlock, Unilock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 05:54:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2840450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lue4028/pseuds/Lue4028
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock thinks John is beautiful (in progress)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shirts

“Sherlock, you didn’t wake me up!” John gripes at Sherlock, who is standing in the bathroom doorway brushing his teeth.

“I was in the shower,” Sherlock replies unaffectedly, watching John scuttle about the room chaotically like he’s a moderately boring television show.

“Well now I’m late,” John remarks, putting his arms through the sleeves of his collar shirt as he crosses the room to arrive at the door, where he inserts his feet into his shoes.

“I can see that,” Sherlock says observantly as John scrambles past him to retrieve his toast from the kitchen. John always insists on eating breakfast.

John lets out a groan. “Well, good for you!” he growls sardonically. When he returns he consuming the last of his toast and is headed toward the door, but Sherlock stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Sorry, you didn’t pass inspection,” Sherlock informs him with a set of detached, downcast eyes. John settles back in confusion.

“Your color scheme is amiss.”

“I’m sorry?” 

With a cursory indication toward John’s clothes, “Dark top. Light trousers. I can’t let you leave the residence dressed like that. Hold on a moment,” Sherlock tells him, then heads to the bedroom.

“What?” John blinks in incomprehension, whirling around to face him, “Sherlock, I have to _go_!”

As Sherlock sorts through his shirts, “Correction, John. You have to stay put,” he gives John a stern look and gestures to him in a way an owner might gesture his dog to sit. John is aghast and nonplussed.

“And more importantly,” Sherlock crosses back toward him, having selected an appropriate shirt, “You have to dress properly.”

John refuses to take that from a man who’s walking around half-clothed in jeans.

As Sherlock unbuttons his shirt, “Sherlock, I really don’t have time for this; Lecture starts in ten minutes—” John tries to remove Sherlock’s fingers, but Sherlock bats his encroaching hands away. John groans with exasperation.

Sherlock discards John’s shirt and replaces it with a white one, which John considers an odd color choice because his slacks are white as well, but he refrains from mentioning it for the sake of getting out of the room as quickly as possible.

Eventually, the irony of having Sherlock dress him despite being incompletely dressed himself nettles John past toleration, so he grabs the nearest shirt and puts it on Sherlock. It’s while they are buttoning each other that John realizes the illogic of both of them dressing each other, when it would be more natural for each of them to dress themselves. Irked, John stops with Sherlock’s buttons and turns on his heel just as Sherlock finishes doing his shirt.

As John heads to the entrance, “Wait, John, you need a jacket—“ The door closes behind John and puts a lid on Sherlock’s voice.

\--

John notices throughout the day that his appearance is garnering unwanted attention. His lecture teacher notices him out of the crowd of students and her speech drawls for a moment, before she averts her eyes and resumes sketching a mechanism on the board. As he passes through campus to his next class he passes not one, not two, but eight goer-bys who stop and stare blatantly. And then there’s Mike at lunch, who, when he first sets eyes on John, looks momentarily startled.

“Ay John,” he blinks, “You look different.”

“Not on my account- it’s Sherlock’s doing,” John replies, heading out of the canteen after retrieving a sandwich.

“Oh, that explains it,” Mike smiles.

To dispose of the plastic wrap containing his sandwich in the nearest trashcan, John walks parallel across the biosciences building with reflective window panes comprising its face. At first, he ignores his mirror image because it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before. However, after remiting the plastic, in the midst of his return to the outdoor bench where he and Mike are eating, his reflection does catch his eye. And he, like the many other people he encountered that day, stares.

\--

When John returns to their flat, the day is beginning to fade into dusk. He finds all the people on their floor in the kitchen area, preparing dinner. John’s eyes fall on Sherlock, amongst them all, and the world ends.

Sherlock’s back is facing him, his attention evidently directed to the stove, and he’s wearing John’s cotton flannel shirt— checked navy blue with thin red traces. John rewinds back to the morning, where he grabbed the nearest shirt, which was naturally his shirt, the one Sherlock disapproved of and discarded, and in a haphazard manner, placed it on Sherlock.

Sherlock turns around, holding two plates. When he sees John he greets him warmly.

“Hey John,” he smiles.

John sees that his buttons are misaligned at the top, straining the fabric and exposing the larger portion of his clavicle on one side. This is the incongruency, caused by John’s fumbling, careless fingers this morning, that has signified the end of the world to John- Sherlock Holmes is imperfectly dressed and has let the error just _sit_ there all day.

Sherlock places the two plates on the table in front of John, and sits down, folding a leg beneath him on the chair. He is barefooted, not having bothered with shoes or socks.

“Pasta Carbonera?” he asks.

“Um.. sure. Thanks,” John replies dazedly, sitting down.

“Well you don’t have to sound so excited about it,” Sherlock jeers.

“Um.. Sherlock— your shirt—it’s…” John stammers inarticulately, vaguely indicating his collar area.

“Askew?” Sherlock supplies for him.

“Yes.”

“Askew,” John repeats.

“Indeed,” Sherlock smiles at him, leaning his head on his hand and forking his pasta.

\--

John catches himself in the mirror again, in front of the sink. He glances over the shirt again. “Where did this shirt come from anyway?” he asks, turning partway to look out the doorway, toward the desk where Sherlock is typing on his laptop.

“It’s Burton. I bought it, John. Obviously.”

“You _bought_ _clothes_ for me?” He asks, leaning a hand against the doorway. John’s voice betrays an extraordinary amount of emotion. He is genuinely astounded.

“It’s only a shirt. Don’t sound so surprised,” Sherlock says dismissively, taken aback by John’s blatant display of sentimentality. The pools of his eyes are deeply affected, as though Sherlock has done something touching and decent.

“It’s a..” John trails, eyes falling to the sleeve end, there’s no other word for it, “beautiful shirt. Thank you.”

Sherlock looks at him with a set of furrowed eyebrows, perplexed. Then, the cloud of confusion dissipates instantaneously, realization dawning on him.

“Oh, no, no, it’s not the shirt, John,” he laughs, standing from his perch on the desk chair, “It’s you that’s beautiful. The shirt merely does a good job of showing that.”

“You think I’m beautiful,” John says levelly.

“As a matter of fact, not opinion,” Sherlock replies in his defense, “I only deal in facts.”

John stares at Sherlock, very intently.

“Is there… something you mean to say to me John?” Sherlock asks with a pair of peculiar, trenchant eyes, detained by John’s unwavering gaze. John realizes he’s staring and stiffens to attention. After a moment’s pause he scoffs dryly to himself.

“If you think I’m beautiful, I wonder what that makes you. Narcissus or something.”

Sherlock laughs. “I may be attractive, but its not quite the same..” Sherlock replies mildly dissatisfied, “you know?”

“No, I don’t.”

Sherlock takes another step, raising his loosely fisted fingers to eyelevel. “I mean that you’re beautiful through and through, John.” He rests a hand on John’s shirt. John sucks in a sudden breath at the sensation of a sharp, deliriously blissful pain sparking beneath Sherlock’s hand.

“Whereas I don’t delve quite as deep.”


End file.
